Business and economics

A new train between Keflavik international airport and Reykjavik could decrease travel time down to 20 minutes and increase possibilities for domestic flight. The cost for this project could be around €600 million - €670 million, and the train that is being looked can go up to 200 km/hour.

According to the Icelandic Labour Force Survey the number of persons in the labour force in December 2013 was 185,100. Of those in the labour force 176.900 persons where employed and 8,200 persons where unemployed. The activity rate was 80.9%, the employment rate was 77.3% and the unemployment rate was 4.4%.

Guðrún Johnsen, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Business Administration and former employee of Althingi‘s Special Investigation Commission into the main causes of the failure of the banks; recently published the book Bringing Down the Banking System; Lessons from Iceland.

From now on, the Central Bank will report at the beginning of each year on foreign exchange market developments and changes in the foreign exchange reserves during the preceding year. Early in 2013, after a period of marked ISK depreciation in the final months of 2012, the Central Bank decided to suspend its programme of regular foreign currency purchases, and the króna appreciated significantly thereafter.

The American technology giant Apple recently sent out a press release where the Icelandic software developer Plain Vanilla is names as one of the companies that Apple believes that App Store customers should pay close attention to in 2014.

The producer price index (PPI) in November 2013 was 203.4 points (4. quarter 2005 = 100), 0.9% higher than in the previous month. The PPI for fish products was 255.6 points which is 0.8% higher than in October 2013 (effect on the index 0.3%) and the PPI for power intensive industry products was 204.5 points, 2.9% higher (1.0%).

In the 3rd quarter of 2013, the financial balance of the general government (i.e. the central government, the social security funds and the local governments) amounted to 2.4 billion ISK in deficit or 0.5% of quarterly GDP and 1.2% of general government total revenue.